Belgrade Insight Issue No 116

Gordana Andrić

Serbia awaits a new gov-ernment, but the tasks the new cabinet faces are quite old.

The new administration must deal first with soaring debt, in-flation and unemployment, as well as focusing on EU integration, dia-logue with Kosovo and corruption, analysts say.

It’s the economy, stupid

Once it assumes its duties, the new government will confront the problem of Serbia’s out-of-control national debt.

This is now five per cent above the agreed limit of 45 per cent of GDP. As a result of this, the IMF has postponed a fresh arrangement with Serbia.

The agreement was frozen in Feb-ruary after the IMF said Serbia had

projected a fiscal deficit reaching at least 5.25 per cent of GDP, having agreed that the deficit would not exceed 4.25 per cent of GDP [€1.3 billion].

Unemployment, meanwhile, stands

officially at 24 per cent. Inflation is another worry, as is the falling value of the national currency. The dinar hit a new low at the end of May, when it was worth 116 on the euro.

Serbia’s new team faces same old challenges

Income tax reform may revive shaky finances

www.BelgradeInsight.com

Tomislav Nikolić and Boris Tadić agreed on Serbia’s main priorities. Photo by Beta

Whichever parties form the new administration, they face the same old inherited headaches - from soaring debt and unemployment to endemic corruption and the unresolved issue of Kosovo.

Root and branch reform of the way Serbia assesses and collects income tax could inject valuable new funds into the depleted budget, analysts say.

New countries, new views on Tito

Boris PAvelić

“Josip Broz Tito. Politician. He was the president of Yugoslavia. A womaniser. He had a lot of women.

Everybody lived well during his times. There was a lot of money.”

This was the way a high school stu-dent from the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina recently described a photo of Josip Broz Tito. It illustrates, a bit grotesquely, how Tito is perceived with-in the education systems of the succes-sor states of the former Yugoslavia.

Another high school student’s de-scription of Tito was cited in a 2011 edition of “Skolegijum”, a Sarajevo based education journal: “I think this is Josip Broz Tito. He was at the top of the former Yugoslavia. He was a me-chanic and a locksmith,” the student wrote after being asked to describe the man in the photo.

Such distorted descriptions of Josip Broz Tito are the result of “de-titoisa-tion”, a process which was “one of the main characteristics of the changes to history teaching after the dissolution of Yugoslavia”, as Zagreb-based historian Magdalena Najbar-Agičić puts it in the book “The myth of Tito“.

“The impact of that change on the collective consciousness still hasn’t been sufficiently explored,” Najbar-Agičić stresses.

Continued on page 3

Continued on page 6

Thirty two years after his death, the cult of personality built around Josip Broz Tito in history teaching across the old Yugoslavia has been replaced with narrower, nationalist interpretations.

Olivera BOjić

A Belgrader from Savski Venac municipality with an annual income of €1.6 million is the person with the high-

est registered income in the country, according to the Tax Administration, which says he owes 15 per cent of this

amount, about €277,000, a year in personal income tax.

He is one of a few who pay such high taxes in Serbia, where income tax as a percentage of national revenue is far below the European average.

While in most OECD countries in-dividual income tax provides a quarter of total tax revenue, in Serbia it pro-vides only about 10 per cent.

As the Serbian government’s arrange-ment with the IMF was put on hold after the national debt exceeded the agreed ceiling of 45 per cent of GDP, and is currently is at 50 per cent, Serbia must find new ways both to cut spend-ing and increase tax collection in order to pump more money into the budget.

The IMF agreement was frozen in February after the IMF deemed the 2012

budget inconsistent with the agreed fis-cal programme. While it was agreed that the fiscal deficit - the gap between state revenues and expenditure – would not exceed 4.25 per cent of GDP [€1.3 billion], the IMF mission to Belgrade said Serbia had projected a fiscal deficit reaching at least 5.25 per cent of GDP.

Continued on page 8

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its S

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Whi

le y

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er S

ocia

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supp

ort j

oini

ng a

new

, pro

-EU

gov

ernm

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old

Milo

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c lo

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en re

volt

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ark

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n

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y of

us

who

hav

e ex

peri-

ence

d nu

mer

ous

Ser

bian

ele

ctio

ns

rate

our

selv

es a

s pu

ndits

whe

n it

com

es t

o pr

edic

ting

elec

tion

re-

sults

and

pos

t-el

ectio

n m

oves

. W

e fe

el i

n-th

e-kn

ow b

ecau

se

our

expe

rienc

e of

ele

ctio

ns in

Ser

-bi

a ha

s sh

own

us th

at (a

.) no

sin

gle

part

y or

coa

litio

n w

ill ev

er g

ain

the

maj

ority

requ

ired

to fo

rm a

gov

ern-

men

t, an

d (b

.) po

litic

al n

egot

iatio

ns

will

neve

r be

quic

kly

conc

lude

d.Ev

en

whe

n th

e D

emoc

rats

ac

hiev

ed t

heir

surp

risin

g re

sult

at

last

m

onth

’s

gene

ral

elec

tion,

it

quic

kly

beca

me

clea

r th

at t

he r

e-su

lt w

as a

ctua

lly m

ore-

or-le

ss t

he

sam

e as

eve

ry o

ther

ele

ctio

n re

sult

in S

erbi

a, i.

e. in

conc

lusi

ve.

This

is li

kely

to c

ontin

ue a

s lo

ng

as

Ser

bia’

s po

litic

ians

fo

rm

new

po

litic

al

part

ies

ever

y tim

e th

ey

disa

gree

with

the

ir cu

rren

t pa

rty

lead

er (t

here

are

cur

rent

ly 3

42 re

g-is

tere

d po

litic

al p

artie

s in

Ser

bia)

. D

raw

n-ou

t neg

otia

tions

are

als

o th

e no

rm.

One

B

elgr

ade-

base

d A

mba

ssad

or r

ecen

tly t

old

me

he

was

als

o al

arm

ed b

y th

e di

stin

ct

lack

of

ur

genc

y am

ong

Ser

bian

po

litic

ians

. “T

he

coun

try

is

at

a st

ands

till

and

I do

n’t

unde

rsta

nd

thei

r lo

gic.

If

they

are

so

eage

r to

pr

ogre

ss t

owar

ds t

he E

U a

nd e

n-co

urag

e in

vest

ors,

how

com

e th

ey

go h

ome

at 5

pm s

harp

and

don

’t w

ork

wee

kend

s?”

Sur

ely

the

situ

atio

n is

ur

gent

en

ough

to w

arra

nt a

littl

e ov

ertim

e.

Cost

s M

ount

ing

Econo

mis

ts a

re w

arni

ng th

at p

ro-

long

ed un

certa

inty

over

Ser

bia’

s fu

ture

cou

ld sc

are

off i

nves

tors

, lea

d to

hig

her

infla

tion

and

jeop

ardi

se

pros

perit

y fo

r yea

rs to

com

e.“T

his y

ear h

as b

een

lost

, fro

m th

e st

andp

oint

of e

cono

mic

pol

icy,

” say

s St

ojan

Sta

men

kovi

c of

the

Econ

om-

ics I

nstit

ute

in B

elgr

ade.

Foot

ball

Rebe

llion

Whi

le th

e foo

tbal

l wor

ld w

atch

-es

eve

nts

unfo

ld a

t the

Eur

o-pe

an C

ham

pion

ship

s in

Aus

tria

and

Switz

erla

nd, B

osni

a is

exp

erie

ncin

g a

socc

er re

belli

on, l

ed b

y fa

ns, p

lay-

ers a

nd fo

rmer

star

s who

are e

nrag

ed

by w

hat t

hey

see

as c

orru

pt le

ader

s of

the

coun

try’s

foot

ball

asso

ciat

ion

lead

ers.

By

Rad

e M

aroe

vic

in B

elgr

ade

Tense

neg

otia

tions

on

a new

gov

-er

nmen

t hav

e di

vide

d th

e ra

nks

of t

he S

ocia

list

Party

, w

hich

hol

ds

the

bala

nce

of p

ower

bet

wee

n th

e m

ain

bloc

s an

d ha

s ye

t to

anno

unce

w

hich

side

they

will

supp

ort.

“It

look

s as

if

the

Soci

alist

s w

ill

mov

e to

war

ds a

gov

ernm

ent l

ed b

y th

e D

emoc

rats,

” po

litic

al a

naly

st M

i-la

n N

ikol

ic, o

f the

inde

pend

ent C

en-

tre o

f Pol

icy

Stud

ies,

said

. “Bu

t suc

h a

mov

e m

ight

pro

voke

dee

per

divi

-sio

ns a

nd e

ven

split

the

party

.”Si

mul

tane

ous

nego

tiatio

ns

held

w

ith th

e pr

o-Eu

rope

an a

nd n

atio

nal-

ist b

locs

hav

e dr

awn

atte

ntio

n to

a

deep

rift

insid

e th

e So

cial

ists.

This

divi

des

“old

-tim

ers”

lo

yal

to S

erbi

a’s

late

pre

siden

t, Sl

obod

an

Milo

sevi

c, a

nd r

efor

mist

s w

ho w

ant

the

party

to b

ecom

e a

mod

ern

Euro

-pe

an so

cial

dem

ocra

t org

anisa

tion.

Afte

r ei

ght

year

s of

sta

gnat

ion,

th

e So

cial

ists r

etur

ned

to c

entre

stag

e af

ter

win

ning

20

of th

e 25

0 se

ats

in

parli

amen

t in

the

May

11

elec

tions

.W

ith th

e pro

-Eur

opea

n an

d na

tion-

alist

blo

cs a

lmos

t ev

enly

mat

ched

, th

e So

cial

ists

now

hav

e th

e fin

al s

ay

on th

e fa

te o

f the

cou

ntry

.N

ikol

ic b

elie

ves t

he S

ocia

lists,

led

by I

vica

Dac

ic,

will

com

e ov

er t

o Ta

dic,

if o

nly

out o

f a p

ragm

atic

de-

sire

to e

nsur

e th

eir p

oliti

cal s

urvi

val.

“The

gro

up o

f yo

unge

r So

cial

ists

gath

ered

aro

und

Dac

ic s

eem

s to

be

in th

e m

ajor

ity”,

Nik

olic

said

, add

ing

that

thes

e ref

orm

ists b

elie

ve th

e par

ty

face

s ext

inct

ion

unle

ss it

cha

nges

. H

owev

er,

a str

ong

curre

nt a

lso

flow

s in

the

opp

osite

dire

ctio

n, l

ed

by p

arty

vet

eran

s en

rage

d by

the

pr

ospe

ct o

f a d

eal w

ith T

adic

.M

ihaj

lo M

arko

vic,

a f

ound

er o

f th

e pa

rty, r

ecen

tly w

arne

d of

a c

risis

if D

acic

opt

s fo

r th

e pr

o-Eu

rope

an

bloc

, aba

ndon

ing

the S

ocia

lists’

“nat

-ur

al”

ideo

logi

cal p

artn

ers.

Mar

kovi

c, a

pro

min

ent

supp

orte

r of

Milo

sevi

c du

ring

the

1990

s, is

seen

as

repr

esen

tativ

e of

the

“ol

d-tim

ers”

in th

e pa

rty w

ho w

ant t

o sta

y tru

e to

the

form

er r

egim

e’s

polic

ies,

even

thou

gh th

ese

alm

ost r

uine

d th

e So

cial

ists f

or g

ood.

So

me

youn

ger

Soci

alist

offi

cial

s ha

ve v

oice

d fru

strat

ion

over

the

con-

tinui

ng i

mpa

sse

with

in t

heir

own

party

ove

r whi

ch w

ay to

turn

. “T

he s

ituat

ion

in th

e pa

rty s

eem

s ex

trem

ely

com

plic

ated

, as

we

try

to c

onvi

nce

the

few

rem

aini

ng l

ag-

gard

s th

at w

e ne

ed t

o m

ove

out

of

Milo

sevi

c’s

shad

ow,”

one

Soc

ialis

t Pa

rty o

ffici

al c

ompl

aine

d.“D

acic

will

eve

ntua

lly s

ide

with

Ta

dic

in a

bid

to g

uide

his

party

into

th

e Eu

rope

an m

ains

tream

, but

muc

h of

the

mem

bers

hip

and

man

y of

fi-ci

als m

ay o

ppos

e th

at m

ove.

” N

ikol

ic a

gree

d: “

The

ques

tion

is w

ill th

e pa

rty s

plit

or w

ill th

e ‘o

ld-

timer

s’ ba

ck d

own,

” he

not

ed.

Fear

ing

they

mig

ht n

ot c

ross

the

5-

per-c

ent

thre

shol

d to

ent

er p

arlia

-m

ent,

the

Soci

alist

s te

amed

up

with

th

e Ass

ocia

tion

of P

ensio

ners

and

the

Uni

ted

Serb

ia P

arty

, led

by

busin

ess-

man

Dra

gan

Mar

kovi

c “P

alm

a”.

Pens

ione

rs le

ader

, Jov

an K

rkob

a-bi

c, P

alm

a an

d D

acic

are

all

push

ing

for a

dea

l with

the

Dem

ocra

ts.

The

repo

rted

pric

e is

the

post

of

depu

ty P

M, w

ith a

brie

f in

char

ge o

f se

curit

y fo

r the

Soc

ialis

t lea

der.

In a

dditi

on, t

he S

ocia

lists

are

bar-

gain

ing

for

othe

r m

inist

ries,

incl

ud-

ing

capi

tal i

nves

tmen

ts, K

osov

o an

d ed

ucat

ion,

Bel

grad

e m

edia

repo

rted.

Tadi

c ha

s de

nied

tal

k of

hor

se-

tradi

ng w

ith th

e So

cial

ists,

mai

ntai

n-in

g th

at m

inist

ries

wou

ld g

o on

ly to

th

ose

com

mitt

ed to

wor

king

for

the

gove

rnm

ent’s

“str

ateg

ic g

oal”

.A

t the

sam

e tim

e, D

acic

seem

s re-

luct

ant

to c

all

off

nego

tiatio

ns w

ith

the

natio

nalis

ts.“I

f w

e do

n’t

reac

h an

agr

eem

ent

with

the

DSS

and

Rad

ical

s, th

e pa

r-ty

lea

ders

hip

will

dec

ide

on f

utur

e ste

ps”,

Dac

ic a

nnou

nced

, fo

llow

ing

the fi

rst s

essio

n of

coun

try’s

new

par

-lia

men

t on

Wed

nesd

ay.

Sour

ce: B

alka

n In

sight

(www

.bal

kani

nsig

ht.c

om)

Bus

ines

s Ins

ight

Nei

ghbo

urho

od M

atte

rs

Soci

alis

t lea

der I

vica

Dac

ic re

mai

ns th

e Se

rbia

n ki

ngm

aker

page

5pa

ge 1

0

TH

IS IS

SU

E O

FB

elg

rad

e In

sig

htIS

SU

PP

OR

TE

D B

Y:

ISSN 1820-8339

9 7 7 1 8 2 0 8 3 3 0 0 0

0 1

Issue No. 116 Friday, June 1, 2012 - Thursday, June 14, 2012

SuBScrIBe +381 11 334 60 35

[email protected]

Hollywood musters

blockbusters to break all

records 0

Belgrade goes first with bills

by text

Page 4

Fine French food without

the flare

Page 11

Belgrade Insight +381 11 334 62 09 [email protected]

Belgrade Insight, Friday, June 1, 2012 - Thursday, June 14, 2012 Belgrade Insight, Friday, June 1, 2012 - Thursday, June 14, 20122 3

POEMS ABOUT ĐOKOVIĆ SPARK GAMBLING ROW IN SERBIAMay 30th | Večernje Novosti

A book of children’s poems about Novak Đoković, the world’s top tennis player, has caused indignation among parents and Đoković’s family. The book has been put on sale in Serbian schools, sparking an avalanche of negative reactions in Serbia as it appears to promote gambling among minors.

TADIĆ READY TO BE SERBIA’S PMMay 28th | Blic

Boris Tadić, leader of the Democratic Party and outgoing president, has said that he is ready to take the prime minister’s role if future government coalition partners agree on the goals he sets.

NIKOLIĆ MEETS WITH PUTINMay 27th | Press

Tomislav Nikolić, leader of the Serbian Progressive Party, SNS, and Serbia’s president-elect, has attended the congress of United Russia, Russia’s ruling party, and met with President Vladimir Putin.

BELGRADE HOSTS CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN FREEMASONSMay 25th | Politika

Around 250 freemasons from 20 European countries have gathered in Belgrade for the first time in 82 years for the two-day conference of the United Grand Lodge of Europe.

NIKOLIĆ TO BE INAUGURATED ON JUNE 11TH

Serbia’s new president, Tomislav Nikolić, was sworn in on May 31st and will be inaugurated at a ceremony on June 11th.

JEREMIĆ BIDS TO CHAIR UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

Vuk Jeremić, outgoing Serbian foreign minister, is due to find out whether or not he will preside over the UN General Assembly on June 8th. The post of President of the General Assembly is mainly of a technical nature, but it still carries a certain amount of prestige and responsibility.

LITHUANIA TO RATIFY SERBIA’S SAA Lithuania is set to ratify Serbia’s Stabilisation and

Association Agreement by the end of June, according to earlier announcements. Lithuania is the last EU country to ratify the agreement with Serbia and the SAA will finally come into force once Vilnius gives its approval.

SOUTH AFRICA TO DECIDE ON ExTRADITION OF ARKAN’S MURDERER

A Court in Cape Town is to decide on June 12th whether to extradite Dobrosav Gavrić to Serbia. Gavrić, who Serbian courts sentenced to 35 years for the murder of infamous paramilitary leader Željko Ražnatović Arkan, was arrested in South Africa in December 2011.

PreSS round-uP comIng uP

serbiaserbiaContinued from page 1

Analysts agree that dealing with economic issues and unfreezing the IMF agreement must be the first tasks of the new government in order to attract foreign investments.

“An agreement with the IMF would bring macroeconomic sta-bility, but I fear the new govern-ment will have no plan or strategy when it comes to introducing the measures we need, or the deter-mination and courage to imple-ment them,” says economist Saša Đogović.

“However, as they have to work with the IMF…. I expect the IMF to push them to do what they have to do. They might try to stall, but they will have to do it,” he added.

In order to avoid a Greek-style meltdown, Serbia will have to em-brace unpopular measures.

Đogović told BIRN that the government will probably have to increase VAT, currently AT 18 per cent, and reform the complex tax system.

Public sector salaries will have to be frozen, the number of pub-lic employees reduced, subsidies to public companies cut and the pen-sion age increased.

Serbian civil servants currently re-tire at 65 for men and 60 for women.

He suggested that the govern-ment will have to sell the state-owned Telekom company to fill the budget gap.

“This government will have to deal with all themistakes made in

the last four years. Unfortunately, I expect they will sell Telekom just to cover the deficit [rather than in-vest],” Đogović continued.

Pavle Petrović, from the Fiscal Council, an independent body, said the government must imple-ment tough measures to control inflation.

“The exchange rate is like a high fever and behind that fever is a seri-ous illness,” Petrović said.

In an analysis that the Fiscal Council has prepared for the new government, the body warned that if reforms are not carried out as soon as possible Serbia could face the same problems seen further south in Greece.

No change on EU and Kosovo

As almost all parties that have entered parliament agree that Ser-bia should continue EU accession talks and maintain dialogue with Kosovo, which declared indepen-dence in 2008 [which Serbia does not recognise], analysts believe that the new government will follow the course set by the previous govern-ment in these fields.

Serbia obtained EU candidacy status in March after reaching a deal on Kosovo’s right to partici-pate in regional forums.

Further progress in talks with Kosovo is one of the key conditions that Brussels has set for Serbia to take the next step – setting a date for accession negotiations.

The European Commission can recommend a start to accession talks at any time and will not have to wait for the next progress report on Serbia, due in October.

Although Serbia has said it will never recognise Kosovo’s indepen-dence, Belgrade and Pristina start-ed EU-mediated talks in Brussels last March to solve practical issues such as freedom of movement, rec-ognition of university diplomas,

electricity and communications.Milan Nikolić, from the Cen-

tre for Policy Studies, believes the dialogue will resume as soon as the new government is formed.

“They will continue solving some practical issues… the talks may go back and forth, but they will go forward,” he predicted.

Nikolić also believes that Serbia will gain a date for the start of ac-cession talks and enter formal ne-gotiations with the EU.

“After we start accession nego-tiations we’ll have to start chang-ing our laws and continue re-forms and their implementation,” he added.

But political analyst Jovo Bakić said Tomislav Nikolić’s election could be a complicating factor.

“The prejudice that Western Euro-peans have towards Nikolić, whom they regard as a nationalist, may be used as an excuse to slow down or postpone Serbia’s accession,” he said.

“On the other hand, regardless of the shortcomings that might be found in Nikolić’s past, I’m confi-dent that he wants to move Serbia closer to the EU,” Bakić added.

Tackling corruption at last?

Both Nikolić and Tadić have agreed that one of the main goals for Serbia is a more effective fight against corruption.

Petrus van Dijk, professor at Tilburg University in The Nether-lands, said many people now be-lieve corruption runs at the same levels in Serbia as it did during the rule of Serbia’s late strongman, Slo-bodan Milošević.

“The number of people sen-tenced for corruption is lower than it was in the time of Milošević and the number of cases entering court procedures is lower now than it was in 2000,” Van Dijk said, presenting a report on corruption in Serbia on May 30th.

Although experts believe the fight against corruption should be a key priority, they have little faith that the government will be seri-ously committed to tackling this issue.

Dragana Boljević, president of the Serbian Association of Judges, said there was little political will to deal with corruption and the ju-diciary continued to face political pressure.

“Political will means that all cas-es must be prosecuted, even if they are at the highest levels of govern-ment,” Boljević said.

Nemanja Nenadić, from Trans-parency Serbia, says that a firmer stance against corruption looks doubtful if the new government is formed by the same parties that led the country last time.

“If the composition of the new government is similar to the old one, there is no reason to think they will act different-ly,” he said.

“But, you never know, maybe the new government will be more thor-ough,” Nenadić told BIRN.

Serbia’s new team faces same old challenges

Milan Nikolić says Serbia will continue both EU integration and talks with Pristina. Photo by Media Centre BelgradeSerbia coach Siniša Mihajlović stands by his decision to drop Ljajić. Photo by Beta

Bojana BArlOvAC

The Bosniak Cultural Com-munity, the biggest Bosniak [Muslim] party in the south-west Sandžak region, has accused Siniša Mihajlović,

coach of the Serbia national football team, of discriminating against Bosniaks.

On May 28th Mihajlovic banned Adem Ljajić, a Bosniak player, from the international squad after he failed to sing the national anthem before a friendly match with Spain on May 26th.

Ljajić said he did not join in for “per-sonal reasons” but that failed to satisfy Mihajlović.

“This act of discrimination by the coach has confirmed that Bosniaks cannot merit a place in the [national] football team without giving up their identity,” the Bos-niak Cultural Community said.

Another Bosniak party, the Bosniak People’s Party, BNS, also condemned the move. The party said that Ljajić had shown he respected the constitution and the country by wanting to defend “the colours of Serbia”.

“However, Ljajić must not be forced to sing the anthem which is only adapt-ed to the Serbian people and Serbian citizens of the Orthodox religion,” the party said.

Serbia’s national anthem, “God of Justice”, reads: “God our Master! Guide and prosper the Serbian lands and Ser-bian race!”

The party said if the team continued like this, Serbian Bosniak athletes would have no choice but to play for other countries.

The Serbian Football Federation has defended Mihajlović’s move, say-ing that by failing to sing the anthem Ljajić breached the team’s code of con-duct.

The code is a set of rules Mihajlović issued last week that needs to be signed by all players and staff. The first item on the code is that everyone has to sing the national anthem.

However, the football federation has refused to send the document to BIRN. “It is a secret document,” the federation said.

Meanwhile, Mihajlović said the doors of the national team are not closed for-ever to Ljajić but he needs to change his attitude and officially notify Mihajlović that he has done so. “When his form merits it, he can return,” Mihajlović said.

Video footage of the game shows that Ljajić wasn’t the only player who didn’t sing the anthem. Other non-singers in-cluded Neven Subotić.

Serbian Bosniaks condemn footballer’s banParties in Serbia’s predominantly Muslim region of Sandžak have condemned the Serbian Football Association for banning a player who refused to sing the national anthem.

“This government will have to deal with all the mistakes

made in the last four

years.”Saša Đogović,

economist

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Chris Farmer

You cannot defeat the System.With the need for re-provision,

I set out to a local and conspicuous-ly Unnamed Supermarket (let’s call it “Mini”). I went through the tradi-tional strolling of the aisles, pulling the never changing assortment of comestibles and detersives from the never changing assortment on the shelves and arrived in front of the Prepared Foods counter.

This is the home of the lazy home economist. We look at the prepared foods, knowing that the cooks at “Mini” go through rigorous training for at least 15 minutes before get-ting the job, then we weigh up the benefits of food poisoning against our inherent laziness and laziness usually wins in my case.

I ordered some different foods, including something from a vat that looked like stew but was probably more accurately called Guck, and made my way to the check-out tills. The person manning the cash register flew through my barcodes with deft alacrity, tossing the breakable and bruiseable items crashing down at the other end of the counter, while I scrambled to catch them mid-air.

Then she arrived at the Guck. She ran the barcode three times until she discovered that there was no bar code. She called the Supervi-sor who arrived and spirited the Guck back to the prepared foods department to codify it. When he returned, he had a grave look on his face.

“You cannot buy this,” he said.What? There is a full vat of this

Guck back there and they have been doling it out to as many of us consumer idiots who are intrepid enough to try it. But, as I was told, it has no price entered in the System. So you cannot buy it, he repeated.

Now, determined to have my Guck, I argued my point, saying that if it was on display and given to me on request and if this “Mini” (I looked around) is actually a super-market, then I really should be able to buy it. No? The supervisor looked grave again, or maybe just bored. It is hard to tell.

Sensing that I was not leaving without my Guck, he disappeared again. When he returned, he came back with three items that I did not want. Since “Guck” has no bar code, he said, he would run these three items, whose total price is appar-ently the same as Guck, onto my bill. That way, I suppose, we fool the System and I get my Guck.

Although I am still not sure who won that round, I left the super-market with one conclusion: fear of upsetting the system outweighs the urge to commit bad customer service.

This knowledge of the existence of a Higher Power (i.e., the system) is somehow reassuring.

Christen Bradley Farmer is founder and president of MACH IV Consulting. Farmer also regularly shares his observations on

life Serbia in Politika daily, LivingIn Bel-grade.com, and in his B92.net VIP blog.

Fooling the System c

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belgradebelgrade

City cleans up after election

SMS bill payments launched

HIdden Belgrade

Belgrade’s first outdoor street gallery is located in the Bezistan alleyway between

Nušićeva Street and Nikola Pašić Square. The gallery always boasts some sort of exhibit, so don’t miss the chance to take a look when you pass by. Exhibitions will mainly present young and engaged artists and anyone is welcome to apply to present their works in this city centre exhibition space.

Gordana Andrić

The determined and serious face of Boris Tadić, Serbia’s former president, the smile of the President-elect

Tomislav Nikolić and the open arms of Čedomir Jovanović, leader of the Liberals, will no longer stalk Belgrad-ers all over the city, as authorities have started the post-election clean up.

More than half of the election campaign posters in the city centre were already removed in the first week following the presidential elec-tion, which was held on May 20th. The city’s secretariat for inspection is in charge of the cleaning and said that all the campaign posters will be removed in the coming weeks.

Parties were only allowed to adver-tise on billboards or pillars on Knez Mihailova Street, however, most

hung posters wherever they found an empty space - on facades, electricity pylons or underground passages.

Although very popular in previ-ous elections, garbage containers were not used this campaign, as party activists concluded they were not an appropriate place for putting up posters.

While the Progressives hung the largest number of unauthorised posters in Voždovac, other parties followed suit in different Belgrade municipalities. Almost all parties, in-cluding the Democrats, Liberals and the United Regions of Serbia, adver-tised their candidates in places where it was prohibited.

“We found only one irregular post-er of the Socialist Party of Serbia, near Crvena Zvezda football club stadium. When we informed them of this vio-lation, they paid the penalty,” Zoran Marković, assistant secretary for in-

spection, told daily Politika.Marković said that tenants of residen-

tial buildings are obliged to clean the walls of their buildings, while the city’s public companies are supposed to clean public buildings and public spaces.

Electricity Belgrade was the busiest public company in the post-election period, because their pylons were among the most popular advertising spaces.

The city’s inspection secretariat filed 150 misdemeanour charges against political parties for putting up posters in places not intended for propaganda. The fines range from 2,500 to 1 million dinars [€21-€8,600].

Since the launch of the election campaign in late March, 26 activists were caught hanging posters and 15 paid the fine on the spot. The fines range from 2,500 to 10,000 dinars [€21-€86].

Gordana Andrić

Belgrade Design Week will gather designers from all over the world from June 4th to 10th in the National Library of

Serbia. Over the course of seven days, de-

signers will have the chance to attend workshops and learn about digital, glass, furniture and industrial design and cultural management. Entry is free.

Some world famous designers will present their works, including Aus-trian Thomas Feichtner, France’s Mathieu Lehanneur, Italian-British industrial designer Martino Gam-per, British design studio Troika, Dutch agency 180 Amsterdam, Brit-ish agency Fallon, Austrian architects Querkraft, Slovenian studio Enota, Croatian atelier 3LHD and interior designer Zoran Radojičić.

While the days are scheduled for presentations, the evenings are re-served for exhibitions. Some of the

best Serbian designers, whose work will be presented during Milan De-sign Week, will be shown in the Na-tional Library on June 6th.

On the same evening at the same venue Croatian designers will pres-ent the exhibition Common Sense and Sensibility, which shows how de-sign and economy found a common ground in Croatia, while Slovenian designers will show their exhibition Silent Revolution, which gives in-sight into the Slovenian modern de-sign scene.

Designer Jorg Boner from Switzer-land will demonstrate how much de-sign depends on a producer through five of his new works.

“Our design, our shapes are adapt-ed to different situations, knowledge, history and cultures. We fully sup-port the author’s design.”

“Still, it will always be considered as something that serves a client or a collection, or to put in a context of particular purpose and circumstanc-es, in line with production technol-ogy. With this exhibition, I wish to

show this collaboration between au-thor and factory,” Boner explained.

During Design Week visitors will also have the opportunity to see the work of Spanish experts in the fields of graphic design, illustration, ad-vertising design and architecture.

Through 100 posters, Spain will present its designers in Instituto Cer-vantes on June 7th.

This year the entire Belgrade De-sign Week will be streamed live on-line for the first time at www.wallpa-per.com.

Gordana Andrić

Residents of the Ser-bian capital have been able to pay their electricity bills via text message

since May 23rd. For now the sys-tem is available only to Dina card

holders who use the Telekom mo-bile network, but the plan is to of-fer the same service to all Belgrad-ers by the end of the year.

In order to use the service, us-ers first need to register for mobile payments in their banks, where they will be provided with their protective PIN number.

The banks that offer mobile payment services are AIK bank, Banca Intesa, Čačanska Bank, Jubmes Bank, KBC Bank, OTP Bank, Piraeus Bank, Poštanska štedionica, Privredna banka Beo-grad, ProCredit Bank and Univer-sal Bank.

Once they register, customers simply send a text message con-taining “EDB – space – ED num-ber” to 8008. The ED number is the identification number that Belgraders can find on their bill.

Users will receive a message with their current debit that they need to forward to the number 8008.

They will be asked to enter their PIN and confirm the transaction.

The service cost 5.9 dinars [€0.05] for every transaction.

The system will soon be avail-able to users of all payment cards and within a year it will include other payments, such as Infostan for communal services and BusP-lus for public transport.

Telekom Serbia and Power Dis-tribution Belgrade, EDB, expect other Serbian cities to also intro-duce this service.

“The service is available only in the capital for now, but EDB ex-perts will gladly share their expe-rience and technology with their colleagues from other cities so this service can be available through-out the country,” says Stevan Milićević, EDB director.

Vladimir Lučić, from Telekom, said that the system is completely safe and that he believes the coun-try’s other mobile companies, Tele-nor and VIP, will also offer their clients this service. The three com-panies already allow Belgraders to pay for parking via text message.

Mourning the death of entertainment. Photo by Milena Anđela Mišić Atanacković

The smiles on the faces of Serbian politicians are being peeled off Belgrade’s walls in the post-election clean-up.

Meet the future trends of the design world at the 7th annual Belgrade Design Week.

Belgrade cinema-lovers pay tribute to torched KozaraBojana BArlOvAC

After lighting candles and holding a minute’s si-lence, members of a Bel-grade civic group called “Cinemas: The Return

of the Written-Offs” and passersbys placed funeral wreaths at the entrance of the torched Kozara cinema.

“We regret to announce that the Kozara cinema is dead after a long and

severe illness,” the group said in a state-ment.

The cinema burned down on May 26th. Fire crews came to the spot im-mediately, but failed to put out the blaze in time.

Police have yet to announce the cause of the fire, but the NGO blamed what it called systematic neglect on the part of Nikola Đivanović, owner of the company “Beograd film” and Ivica Todorić, owner of the actual premises.

Đivanović bought Beograd Film from the state in 2007 for €9.2 million, to be paid in six annual instalments.

Since then, Kozara, along with an-other 13 cinemas run by Beograd Film, have not functioned.

Members of Cinemas: Return of the Written-Offs have been staging perfor-mances in the city, reminding people of “the killing” of Belgrade’s old cinemas and their replacement by multiplex cinemas.

Members of an NGO that is campaigning against the closure of Belgrade’s remaining old cinemas laid wreaths at the Kozara cinema, which burned down on May 26th.

Belgraders are the first people in Serbia who can now pay their electricity bills via text message.

Belgrade Design Week kicks off

Belgrade Design Week hosts Thomas Feichtner.

Post-election clean-up underway across the city. Photo by Beta


Bulgarian journalist threatened

Lidia Pavlova, an investigative journalist from Bulgaria

who covers organised crime in the southwest of the country, was threatened on May 25th when her car was set alight in Dupnitsa. The incident was not the first time Pavlova’s car has been vandalised in response to her investigations. Over the last four years, Pavlova, who works for Blagoevgrad-based daily Struma, received several threats and her son Ivan Pavlova received two brutal beatings.

Macedonian puritans restore Prometheus’s modesty

Municipal authorities in Skopje have responded

quickly to have a recently erected nude bronze of Prometheus covered up following complaints from unidentified “women’s organisations”. After just a few days of complaints, the municipal authorities arranged for a bronze loin cloth to be welded to the statue, restoring Prometheus’s modesty. The statue was erected opposite the Parliament building in early May.

Albania fails to elect new president

The Albanian Parliament failed to elect a new head of state in

the first round of voting on May 30th. The ruling majority proposed candidate Xhezair Zaganjori, a constitutional court judge, but his nomination did not even make it to a vote. The opposition Socialists rejected Zaganjori’s nomination as ‘one-sided’ and called for talks between the parties to select a candidate who would also receive the blessing of the opposition.

British experts help Bosnian war rape victims

The British government has decided to form an

investigative team to help prosecute wartime sexual violence. The team will include police officers, lawyers, psychologists and forensic experts who will travel to war zones in order to gather evidence about mass sexual violence. Up to 50,000 women were raped in Bosnia during the conflict of the early 1990s, but only about 30 direct perpetrators were convicted by local courts or the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.

Romania jails former agriculture minister for USAID fraud

Romania’s Supreme Court upheld an earlier

ruling that jailed former Agriculture Minister Ioan Avram Muresan for seven years for embezzlement on May 28th. Muresan is Romania’s first high-ranking official to be jailed for corruption. The former minister was found guilty of embezzling US$1.2 million in grants from the United States Agency for International Development, USAID.

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New countries, new views on Tito

“Croatia’s Putin” takes over Tuđman’s partyNewly elected head of HDZ, Tomislav Karamarko, wins the post by reviving the nationalist rhetoric of the 1990s.

drago Hedl

Karamarko, 53, a long-time head of Croa-tia’s secret services and interior minister in the governments

of Ivo Sanader and Jadranka Kosor, was elected president of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) on May 20th, beating off four rival candidates including former party president and prime minister, Jardranka Kosor.

Karamarko is now leader of the parliamentary opposition, since the HDZ, which was in power for 17 of the 21 years since independence, lost the December 2011 general elections.

Because of his association with the secret services – and because he clearly sees himself as the next president of

the Republic – some media commen-tators have dubbed Karamarko “Croa-tia’s Putin”.

Karamarko only rejoined the HDZ in November last year, shortly before the parliamentary elections. He had left the party in the 1990s as he dis-agreed with Tuđman over his policy of dividing Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time Karamarko sided with HDZ dissidents led by future Croatian Presi-dent Stjepan Mesić. After Tuđman’s death, in December 1999, Karamarko managed Mesić’s election campaign and when Mesić won he took over the National Security Office (UNS).

Karamarko has assumed the leader-ship of the HDZ when the party is ex-periencing perhaps the most difficult period since its inception. Last year’s elections saw the party record its worst

ever result. The party is currently fac-ing court proceedings over slush funds allegedly generated by siphoning off huge amounts of money from major state-owned companies. Prosecutors say the money was used to finance HDZ election campaigns and some of it disappeared into the pockets of pri-vate individuals.

The party has faced a barrage of charges. Former prime minister and HDZ president Ivo Sanader is cur-rently being tried on charges related to corruption and organised crime. Two former HDZ ministers, Damir Polančec and Berislav Rončević, have been convicted of crimes in this area and a third, Petar Čobanković, is awaiting trial.

These unpromising circumstances may have helped Karamarko’s bid for

the party leadership. Analysts point out that the HDZ’s decline has been so precipitate that none of its established leaders were seen among rank-and-file members as compelling candidates.

Nor was Kosor viewed as a figure who could revive the party’s fortunes. Karamarko, by contrast, was viewed as a clean break – he was not part of the HDZ establishment when the country’s resources were being looted through what is now widely regarded as a criminalised privatisation pro-gramme, or during the subsequent se-ries of corruption and crime scandals.

This party legacy explains why Ko-sor suffered two major defeats in six months, probably ending her political career for good. In December 2011 she lost the parliamentary elections and before the May 21st poll for the HDZ

presidency she was eliminated in the first round of voting.

But it is not just Kosor who will now go. The whole class of HDZ “pharaohs” who have been in power for years will leave too. Karamarko’s broom has already swept aside HDZ founder, parliament speaker and close Tuđman associate Vladimir Šeks, for-mer defence and health minister An-drija Hebrang, wartime interior min-ister Ivan Jarnjak and veteran finance minister Ivan Suker.

During the party leadership cam-paign Karamarko reverted to the na-tionalist rhetoric that was current in the early nineties. He justified this by saying it was a way of returning to HDZ roots and Tuđman’s original phi-losophy. He said that when he came to power he would ban “five-pointed

stars and Kozaracko kolo [collective folk dance of peoples of Yugoslavia]” in Kumrovec, the birthplace of former Yugoslav President Josip Tito.

Tito’s partisans and sympathisers customarily hold gatherings at Kum-rovec. Karamarko also said he would never enter a coalition with the party of Croatia’s Serb minority. Sanader and Kosor had entered such coalitions.

Tuđman, however, is not recorded as having said any of these things.

Karamarko’s radical rightist rheto-ric appears to have been designed to attract support from the remnants of the crushed Croatian right and make this constituency a natural partner of the HDZ, in the hope that right-wing parties will join or at least ally them-selves with the HDZ in the next par-liamentary elections in three and a half

years’ time.But there is at least one problem

with this strategy, since the nationalist right may find it hard to forgive Kara-marko for his role as intelligence chief when the security services located fugi-tive general Ante Gotovina.

Gotovina, regarded by many on the right as a Croatian patriot, was sentenced by the ICTY to 24 years in prison for war crimes. Nor will right wingers forget that Karamarko was in-terior minister when police investigat-ed Branimir Glavaš, a politician who first came to prominence as a leader in the defence of Osijek in 1991, for war crimes committed in that town. Glavaš was subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison.

Those close to Karamarko say his life’s dream is to become president

of the Republic. As head of Stjepan Mesić’s successful presidential cam-paign, he knows how to go about win-ning power and he has already dem-onstrated this by securing the HDZ presidency.

However, President Ivo Josipović is riding a tide of popular support and still has more than three years to go be-fore the end of his first mandate. Bar-ring unforeseen events, Josipović will be hard to beat if he runs for a second term.

But Karamarko is relatively young. He can afford to wait. In the meantime he must consolidate his control over the HDZ and turn it into a revived po-litical force that is capable of running a government.

Together with “de-titoisation”, which has affected the teaching of Tito in all the countries established after the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the “nationalisation“ of Tito’s legacy has also been pursued.

Twenty two years after his death, the communist personality cult of the founder and lifelong president of social-ist Yugoslavia has been replaced with narrower, nationalist interpretations of Broz as a person and his historical im-portance in school history teaching.

Before the nineties, Josip Broz Tito’s historical image, as in Yugoslav society as a whole, was in line with the com-munist idea of their leaders as perfect and unquestionable heroes.

Najbar-Agičić stresses that Tito’s per-sonality cult was one of the “basic co-hesive factors for creating a feeling of unity among the citizens of Yugoslavia.”

“Tito was not only an unquestioned authority in all domains, but also a symbol of a common history, stemming from the people’s liberation struggles during WWII,” writes Najbar-Agičić.

After 1990, that interpretation changed rapidly and radically in Croatia.

But the process was to some ex-tent similar in all the countries which emerged from the former republics of the socialist Yugoslavia.

Serbian historian Dubravka Stojanović has analysed the way inter-pretations of Tito changed in Serbia in several of her works and has identified two main phases of change after 1990.

Until 2000, wrote Stojanović in the book “The Culture of Remembrance – 1941-?”, the Second World War was in-terpreted “in an ideologically confused way, a way which generally fits the pe-

riod of Slobodan Milošević’s rule.”“The Partisan and Chetnik move-

ments were interpreted through a delib-erately ambivalent ideological amalgam of communist and nationalist ideology, which meant that the formerly unques-tioned image of Josip Broz Tito and his Partisan movement was mechani-cally merged with an idealised image of Draža Mihailović and his Chetniks,” Stojanović explained.

After 2000, the process advanced towards an on-going idealisation of Mihailović’s Chetniks and a minimisa-tion of the role of Tito and the partisans.

“A new version of the major events of WWII was written into school-books in Serbia, a process which could be described as ‘revising the revision’,” Stojanović wrote.

According to her, the roles of the

main actors in the war were switched around from communist times “Chet-niks became the ‘good guys’, and parti-sans the ‘bad guys’.”

“This was a very dangerous interven-tion which added to the destabilisation of an already highly disrupted Serbian society,” Stojanović claimed.

A similar, if not so radical transfor-mation occurred in Croatia.

Croatian historian Snježana Koren explained to BIRN how Tito’s image changed in Croatia, saying that “the in-terpretation of Tito changed in the first schoolbooks after 1990“.

“Data about Tito became very basic. His role in the war and his resistance to Stalin were still recognised, but nega-tive characteristics began to come to the fore: Tito started to be interpreted as a dictator and his responsibility for mass murders after the war and the political liquidation of his comrades started to be mentioned,” Koren said.

However, the Zagreb-based histo-rian also emphasised that “the main thrust” of Croatian schoolbooks after 1990 was that “Tito was to blame, not so much for the fact that he was a communist, but primarily because he was not Croat enough“.

“Tito was shown as an enemy of Cro-atian statehood,” Koren said.

Unlike Serbia, Tito’s image in today’s Croatian schoolbooks “is somewhat more positive than during the nineties,” Koren says.

His role in resisting Stalin’s dictates has been positively evaluated, but his alleged responsibility for the death of his war time comrade Andrija Hebrang and the torture that took place in the Lubyanka-style prison of Goli Otok is always emphasised.

Two schoolbooks currently in use in Croatia interpret Tito’s death as “the beginning of the dissolution of Yugo-slavia,” Koren noted.

In today’s Bosnia and Herzegovina three “official” histories exist, and therefore three “official” interpretations of Tito: Serbian, Croatian and Bosniak.

The Serbian version has been dic-tated by the institutions of Republika

Srpska and implemented by the Min-istry of education, which controls the production of history textbooks.

Željko Vujadinović, a historian from Banja Luka, explained to BIRN that in Republika Srpska textbooks “basic data about Josip Broz is given”, although “many biographical details are omitted”.

The WWII period is explained in more detail, with an emphasis on the role of Tito’s communist party in lead-ing the Partisan movement.

“The spontaneous resistance of the Serbian people, in answer to the crimes of the independent state of Croatia, NDH, is mentioned,” Vujadinović said.

The other two “official” interpreta-tions of Tito exist side by side in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Despite the fact that history teaching is theoretically the responsibility of the education ministries for each of the ten cantons of the Federation, in practice two “national” approaches exist: Bos-niak and Croatian.

The Bosniak version was analysed in a 2011 issue of Skolegijum by Enes Kurtović, using an example textbook for the 8th grade of primary school, “History 8”, published by the Sarajevo publishing house, Bosanska Knjiga.

Tito was mentioned in the chapter about the “people’s liberation move-ment in Bosnia”, but “there was noth-ing specific written about him as an historical figure, as Elvis Presley was written about for instance.”

Kurtović ironically concludes that the “textbook’s authors used the tried and tested method of holding their tongue about problematic matters.”

As in Croatia, the Sarajevo text-book considers Tito’s death as the be-ginning of the dissolution of Yugosla-via, but with the additional slant that “Serbian political and intellectual circles then openly started to ask for the 1974 Constitution of Yugoslavia to be terminated.”

History textbooks for Croats in Bos-nia, as Kurtović showed in his article, are in many ways similar to those in Croatia.

“History 8”, a textbook for the 8th grade pupils in Croat primary schools in Bosnia, published in Mostar, cites a Croatian encyclopaedia in giving Tito credit for the return to Croatia of the regions of Istria, Rijeka and the islands.

Even so, “Tito was responsible for acts of revenge and repression at the end of WWII”, and he also “ruled Yugoslavia

for 35 years, trying to reconcile national equality with communist rule.”

“Although he was the absolute ruler for more than three decades, Tito left the state in complete disorder,” states the Mostar textbook.

In Montenegrin schoolbooks the overall image of Tito is a positive one, Radovan Popović from the Montene-grin state education bureau told BIRN.

“In line with our guiding principles, Tito is presented as a positive historical figure,” said Popović.

“Unlike previous eras, his image is shown to scale, plainly and without being idolised. Tito is described as he

was, as a man who marked an epoch in his own way,” he added.

In Macedonia, “the overweening importance” that was attributed to Tito’s role in old Yugoslavia, was re-placed by “world and Balkan history instead of a purely Yugoslav history“ after 1991, history teacher Igor Ju-rukov states in his analysis “History teaching in the Republic of Macedo-nia“, published online.

“History teaching has undergone a great deal of change over the last 15 years, incorporating new trends, but also focusing on the needs of Macedo-nian citizens, the events and historic, well-known personalities that might be seen as ‘connectors’ leading to a new vision of a common Macedonian his-tory,” Jurukov said.

There have also been attempts to teach history in the Balkans in a differ-ent, non-nationalist way.

In 1999, the Centre for Democ-racy in Southeast Europe (CDSEE) launched “The Southeast Europe joint history project”, in which four history textbooks were written in English by prominent historians from the region and then translated into seven regional languages.

The textbooks focused on the Otto-man empire, the birth of nation states, the Balkan wars and WWII.

The editor of the Serbian edition, Dubravka Stojanović, explained that “the project went much further than the Franco-German joint textbook which deals with the non-confrontational part of their joint history after 1945”.

“Our project is an avant-garde one and can cause dramatic reactions in a closed and lazy society, because it ques-tions the basis for our self-containment and self-isolation,” Stojanović said.

The CDSEE textbook, in addition to basic facts about Tito, provides a number of descriptions of Tito by the people who met him and worked with him, including Fitzroy Maclean, a Brit-ish army liaison officer with Tito’s Par-tisans in WWII.

The joint regional schoolbooks were given a great deal of publicity when

they were published, but did not take root in everyday school history teach-ing in Balkan countries.

So the national emphasis on the in-terpretation of Tito still remains the main methodological approach. With that in mind, Stojanović’s opinions on the Serbian history experience could contain a lesson for other post-Yugo-slav countries.

“History science and teaching have more often served as a kind of military training than as a critical thinking dis-cipline. They were often used to adjust

history to the needs of the present, to ‘change’ the past and to justify what’s happening now, or to incorporate cur-rent ideological motives into an ac-ceptable, rather than a real, historical context.”

This kind of history teaching, which includes how Josip Broz Tito is taught, seems to be very much alive and well in the Balkans.

Boris Pavelić is a journalist with the Croatian daily newspaper,

Novi List.

Comment

“Josip Broz Tito. Politician.

He was the president of

Yugoslavia. A womaniser. He had a lot of women. Everybody lived well during his

times. There was a lot of

money.”School pupils’

description of Tito

Nostalgia for Tito’s Yugoslavia is still common throughout the former country.

Josip Broz, aka Tito, (far right) with his Partisans. The former Yugoslav leader’s image has changed with the times.


nemanja ČABrić

Boka Bay’s necklace of towns and cities, carved in the steep rocks that sur-round the 28-kilometre-long bay, tell the history of

this bewitchingly beautiful part of the Mediterranean.

In the turquoise waters there still lie ancient shipwrecks, some of which have been constructed into artificial islands. The mysterious landscape makes it fer-tile soil for myths and legends.

Fine examples of church architecture, both Catholic and Orthodox, some dat-ing back to the 12th century, make it a popular pilgrimage site.

The series of bays starts with the Bay of Herceg Novi. This narrows into the Kumborski Tesnac Gorge. From there it continues into Tivat Bay and then through Verige it ends up in Risan and Kotor Bay, on the opposite sides of the old town of Perast.

At the entrance to Boka from the sea, between Cape Prevlaka and Les-tica, is a small circular islet, only 200 metres in diameter, named after Lazar Mamula, the Austro-Hungarian gen-eral from the mid-19th century who built a fort here. It was used as a pris-on in both world wars.

The 13-kilometre-long peninsula on the right, called Lustica, is rarely crowd-ed and has only dozen villages because most the land was long under the own-ership of the army.

Now it is discovering its true tourist potential, thanks to its untouched natu-ral landscape, as well as archaeological remains and shipwrecks that attract div-ers and researchers.

The most famous village, Rose, is a typical Mediterranean settlement with

stone houses tightly packed around the shoreline.

This small hamlet at the very en-trance to Boka is home to a resident population of only 10 people outside the tourist season.

Further down are Topla Bay on the left and Herceg Novi Bay on the right.

Igalo, Herceg Novi and Tivat

The town of Igalo in Topla Bay be-came a tourist spot in the former Yu-goslavia largely thanks to the medicinal qualities of the local mud.

Since then it has continued to attract crowds each summer, which lasts for a long time here and normally counts some 260 sunny days a year.

Neighbouring Herceg Novi was founded in the 14th century by Tvrtko I Kotromanić, the ruler of Bosnia, as a harbour independent of Dubrovnik.

In the late 15th century it was con-quered by the Ottoman Turks, and then from the late 17th century on-wards it was ruled by Venetians and then by the Austrians.

The town is known for its old church-

es and forts built in various styles and its charming centre.

Several religious sites lie here, among the oldest of which are the Savina mon-astery, dating from the 15th century, the Church of the Archangel Michael, dat-ing from the late 19th century and the, Church of Saint Anthony, which dates from the 16th century.

The oldest fort in the centre is the Es-panola, so called by the Spaniards who seized Herceg Novi from the Turks for a year in 1538, when the fort was built. The Kanli, Sahat, and Jeronima towers date from mid-17th century.

Risan, Perast and Kotor

The earliest mention of Risan dates back to the 4th Century BC. In 229 BC it was the main fortress in the Illyrian state, where Queen Teuta took refuge during the Illyrian Wars.

It submitted to Rome in 168 BC. The most prosperous time for Roman Rhizinium came during the 1st and 2nd centuries, when large villas were built in the area and the city housed some 10,000 inhabitants.

Five mosaics are the most valuable extant remains of that period. The best preserved of them depicts Hypnos, the Greek deity of dreams.

In Risan on February 25th 1851 the Gorski Venac play was performed for the first and only time during the life-time of its author, Petar Petrović Njegoš, despite orders by the Austrian authori-ties forbidding the performance.

Perast is an ancient town that has had many rulers. Venice governed it between 1420 and 1797 as part of Ve-netian Albania. The town’s 16 Baroque palaces were mostly built in this period, as were its 17 Catholic churches and

two Orthodox churches. Near Perast are two small islands,

St George’s island and “Gospa od Škrpjela”, or, “Our Lady of the Rock”, each of which has a picturesque chapel.

Gospa od Škrpjela was built on a rock after two Venetian sailors from Perast found an image of the Virgin Mary there in 1452 and decided to found a church in her honour.

Every year in a celebration called the Fasinada, locals take to their boats and throw rocks into the sea, widening the surface of the island.

St George’s Island is home to a Bene-

dictine monastery from the 12th cen-tury and a graveyard for the old nobility from Perast and Kotor Bay.

Nearby Kotor, one of the best-pre-served medieval old towns in the Adriat-ic, is a UNESCO world heritage site. It hosts several summer events, such as the Summer Carnival, or Bokeljska Noć.

It is home to numerous sights, such as the Cathedral of Saint Tryphon, built in 1166, and the ancient walls that stretch for 4.5km directly above and around the city. The cathedral is one of two Catholic cathedrals in Montenegro and is the seat of a Bishopric.

business

Sun-kissed bay of legends and prayersWalled towns, an ancient cathedral, pilgrimage chapels in the sea and days and days of summer sunshine are just some of the attractions of Kotor Bay.

out and about

Chinese fakes of Serbian products

Serbian company Strauss Adriatic has filed suit against two Chinese traders

for selling mugs sporting fake logos of the company’s Doncafe brand. Company legal representative Nenad Milovanović said that police had seized thousands of the brand copying mugs in the past few years. Company Metalac, which manufactures dishes, also said that several Chinese producers had forged copies of their dishes for the Macedonian and Bosnian markets. While Metalac merely warned the forgers, Strauss Adriatic is suing the distributers “in order to dissuade other potential counterfeiters from doing the same”.

Flights between Belgrade and Split restored

Croatian Airlines launched a new regular flight between Belgrade and

the coastal city of Split as of June 1st, marking the restoration of a route that has not been flown for over 20 years. Flights from Belgrade’s Nikola Tesla Airport will run twice weekly until September 28th, with tickets costing from €125. Serbia’s JAT Airways is also to introduce two weekly flights to Split. The line between the Serbian capital and Croatia’s Adriatic city was cancelled with the outbreak of hostilities between the former Yugoslav republics in 1991.

EU permits Serbian potato imports

The EU has terminated an import ban on the Serbian potato that was introduced

in 2000 over the Clavibacter bacteria. According to the European Commission, Serbia has shown that since 2009 all necessary controls have been conducted and the country has eradicated the bacteria that cause potatoes to rot. Serbia currently produces about 900,000 tonnes of potatoes annually, though the Serbian Chamber of Commerce insists production could be increased by another 100,000 tonnes.

Bu

sin

ess

in b

rief

Gospa od Škrpjela was

built on a rock after two Venetian

sailors found an image of the

Virgin Mary there in 1452.

Stunning sites from the Montenegrin “fjord”. Wikimedia

Since then the government has not cut public spending. In fact, although the government is obliged not to increase the budget deficit by more than €224 million in first three months of 2012, it spent almost double that amount, €413 million, in that period.

Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF, recently told the UK’s Guardian newspaper that one of the causes of the Greek crisis was Athens’ poor rate of tax collection.

“I think they should also help themselves collective-ly. By all paying their tax,” Lagarde told the Guardian.

Analysts say that Serbia also needs to reform its in-come tax laws and rate of collection in order to bring in more money.

They say this could be achieved through the in-troduction of progressive taxation - charging more to those who earn more - and introducing an income tax system that would mean taxpayers paying taxes on all their incomes together, not divided into in-come from wages, real estate or copyright.

Taxable income in Serbia includes salaries, revenue from agriculture and forestry, revenue from copyright and self-employment and revenue from real estate.

Personal income tax is fixed at 12 per cent on sala-ries and 20 per cent on other personal income.

In addition, taxpayers whose annual personal in-come on all revenues exceeds €16,200 pay another 10 to 15 per cent of their annual income.

Those earning between €16,200 and €33,000 pay 10 per cent extra, while those whose annual incomes exceed €33,000 a year pay 15 per cent extra.

In the collection of individual income tax, the larg-est amount comes from taxes on salaries.

Only about 22,000 people in Serbia earn more

than €16,200 and pay annual personal income tax. The amount that the state gets from them is about €17 million.

Most of the money collected from personal in-come taxes goes to local government, not the state budget. Under the Law on Financing Local Govern-ment, which came into force last October, 80 per cent of the revenue from personal income tax goes to local authorities and 20 per cent to the state budget.

Nothing certain but death and taxes?

Although many people quote the saying that nothing is certain but death and taxes, in fact many Serbs pay no personal in-come tax.

While the official unem-ployment rate is 24 per cent, about 7 0 0 , 0 0 0 people in Serbia

work in the so-called grey economy, working un-officially and thus paying no taxes on their salaries.

As contributions on wages that include personal income tax are equivalent to about 62 per cent of a salary, employers are not keen to register their employees, even if they work full time.

With weak controls in place, many landlords also rent out real estate for years at a time to clients with-out declaring it or paying any tax on the earnings.

Analysts say that the rate of collection of person-al income tax would be much higher if employers’ contributions to wages were lower, as employers then would have more incentive to officially em-ploy people.

Saša Ranđelović, from the Faculty of Econom-ics, says the authorities should also introduce tougher controls on employers to ensure they pay taxes and contributions for their workers.

“The total tax base would then be broader and salary taxes could be collected from more employ-ees,” Ranđelović told BIRN.

Also, with average salaries of only €350 a month, Serbian employees are not adding much to the state budget.

As the personal income tax rate on salaries is 12 per cent, the average monthly revenue that the state gets from each employee is about €42.

In order to pay less taxes and contributions in general, many employers report that they and their employees earn only minimal wages, while they get far more money in cash.

Ranđelović explains that the state could more ef-ficiently monitor whether people are reporting low-er incomes in order to avoid tax and contributions.

By comparing whether someone’s property is in line with their declared income, the Tax Adminis-tration could get some idea about whether a tax-payer has paid tax on their real income.

“Such a mechanism would especially affect people with high incomes, which would addition-ally help reduce disparities and motivate other taxpayers to regularly settle their obligations,” Ranđelović said.

Thorough reform needed

Most analysts agree that the whole income tax sys-tem needs to reform in order to increase revenues, cut administrative costs of collecting tax and intro-duce an equitable tax system.

Milan Knežević, from the Association of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises, says the existing system of double taxation - one paid monthly and another paid annually by those earning above €16,200 - cre-ates more work for state officials and thus costs more.

Knežević believes that Serbia should go for a sys-tem that would mean taxpayers paying tax on all their income together, not divided into incomes from wages or real estate.

This system also means that all income could then be taxed at progressive rates and that taxable incomes would include capital income, such as stock dividends.

Economist Jadranka Đurović-Todorović said this system would significantly increase budget revenues.

“This system is on one hand fairer, because currently a person who earns €200 and one who earns €1,000 pay the same tax of 12 per cent on wages.

“On the other hand, it would bring more money into the budget, because those who earn more would pay more [than 12 per cent],” Đurović-Todorović told BIRN.

Economist Saša Radulović believes that tax rates on those working for minimum wages should be zero, the rate should be 20 per cent for those work-ing for any amount above the minimum and 30 per cent and higher for those earning significantly more than the average.

Such tax rates, with lowered or cancelled contribu-tions on wages, such as those for health and pension insurance, would revive the economy.

“In a year or two this would put an end to the grey economy and significantly increase state income and overall economic growth,” he maintains.

€5.7 billion of total tax revenue

for 2011. €610 millionfrom personal

income tax revenue.

Income tax reform may revive Serbia’s shaky finances

Milan Knežević advocates tax reform. Photo by Media Centre Belgrade

Continued from page 1


arts

Andrej KleMenČiČ

There used to be two sea-sons for blockbusters: summer and Christ-mas. It took a century or so for the film indus-

try to realise that people go away for long periods of time during the sum-mer and often travel to see family dur-ing the short winter break. Belatedly, autumn and spring have become the high seasons for film.

The Avengers

In The Avengers, Captain Amer-ica, Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye assemble when Loki, a demigod from another world with a love of irony and severe family prob-lems, decides to attack Earth with help of slimy-looking aliens.

His big brother, Thor, comes with a mighty hammer from their home planet to teach Loki a lesson and take him back home before he destroys the galaxy.

Superhero egos, mechanical worms from outer space and New York land-marks in danger of demolition stand in the way of a happy ending.

Various individual films about Cap-tain America, Iron Man, Hulk and Thor in recent years have shown that the film industry can surprise us all by making mega-expensive films that have the quality to match the special effects. Luckily, assembling all the characters in one film has not changed this winning formula.

Despite some childishly predict-able dialogue, the film distributes the time it apportions to every super-hero, both with action and drama, fairly well.

When their stand on behalf of mankind culminates in the New York battle scene, you can easily see where most of the dollars spent on special ef-fects went.

Much as we love to criticise gadget-laden films, they do sometimes deliver the right amount of everything that a blockbuster should have. Such is the case with The Avengers.

Dark Shadows

In the opposite corner when it comes to fulfilling expectations stands Tim Burton’s Dark Shadows.

Despite being considered as one of the Hollywood directors least likely to make a disappointing film, Dark Shadows is surely close to being one of his poorest achievements.

This film, about a man turned into a vampire in the America of the ear-ly settlers, who then wakes up after some 300 years in the U.S. of 1972, the time of Vietnam and Hippies, is an idea whose realisation could hard-ly have failed.

Add to that a haunted mansion and Michelle Pfeiffer as the head of a once rich but now dysfunctional family and you have material for an ingenious story.

But with Dark Shadows it mostly re-mains just material. The excellent music and great atmospheric shots by director of photography Bruno Delbonnel make the first 20 minutes a treat. But what fol-lows is a thin mix of vampire-costumed Johnny Depp and lavishly dressed Eva Green as a blonde witch.

Despite an uninspiring scenario, the film is saved by the old English brilliantly used by Depp’s character, Barnabas Collins. This 18th-century English is blended with 20th-century surroundings with much wit and ec-centricity, characteristics that have served Burton well throughout his ca-reer and which make his films special.

Men in Black III

Another director who has made it by turning out eccentric films, in this

case after leaving a career in hardcore pornography, is Barry Sonnenfeld.

Back in 1997 he made a film about two agents assigned to keep aliens liv-ing on Earth from causing trouble. Men in Black, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as agents J and K, became an instant success with audi-ences worldwide.

While the first two films were mostly easily digestible humour, the third part is slightly more on the seri-ous side.

In this instalment J needs to go back in time in order to save K from being killed and history from being changed. To prevent the alien invasion in the alternated version of history, J goes back to 1969 where he teams up with the young K.

Josh Brolin is chosen to personify K in his early career and this was the best

decision the studio could have made. He plays the charismatic and intro-verted character developed in the first two films by Lee Jones flawlessly.

This time the studio bosses decided to entrust most of the working job to Ethan Cohen, resulting in some of the funniest moments on film. How-ever, we miss some of the infantile gags from parts I and II.

The Dictator

After Ali G, Borat and Bruno, Sa-cha Baron Cohen comes back as The Dictator.

To silence critics who said that his previous films were not based on can-did camera principles, but were, in fact, covert features, Cohen decided to make a no-improvisation feature film.

In it he plays dictator Aladeen, whose country has oil but also plans to develop nuclear weapons. On his travels to New York, where he plans to mock the UN, Aladeen is kid-napped. After his double takes his place, the latter announces the intro-duction of democracy in the country.

This Aladeen cannot allow and he embarks on a path that includes many funny moments to make sure his country never embraces democ-racy.

Alongside the politically incorrect humour typical of Cohen, there is a lack of substance. However theatri-cal the improvisation from his earlier films might have been, it gave them a special feel of Cohen up against the stupidity of the Western world.

In Dictator it is just about Cohen making you laugh. He does that, but so does any good comedy.

The spring blockbuster season will continue in the coming weeks with Snow White & the Huntsman with Kristen Stewart and Charlize Ther-on as the Snow White and Queen Ravenna. Sci-Fi horror Prometheus is the highly anticipated prequel to Alien, directed by Ridley Scott. Ice Age: Continental Drift brings back for the fourth time the popular car-toon characters.

Hollywood musters blockbusters to break all records

dining out

Pavle GOliCin

A French bistro finally came to town, my friends told me the other day! The fact it’s just

around the corner in my neighbor-hood raised expectations even more. For quite a while we were waiting for the first sunny day to pay a visit to ‘Jelena Anžujska’. Sunny days never came, but it was enough that it was not raining, so we could eventually sit down outside. The scene was set at this cozy place in this quiet corner of downtown where the traffic is limited, along with the polite chef welcoming guests in that best tradi-tion and ancient European ‘institu-tion’ that has nowadays all but been forgotten: hospitality. The wine list, however, did not match the rest of place. It is part of the food menu and is organised in the usual way, divid-ed into red, rose and white, but the lack of any sparkling wines came as a big surprise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m certainly not expecting vintage Champagne in the bistro, but a nice Crémant d’Alsace wouldn’t hurt any-body. However, it is possible to bring your own wine and pay the ‘corkage fee’, so you can make your own wine and food combination.The wine list isn’t long and of the dozen or so bottles on offer only a few are actually French. A blend of Syrah and Grenache from the South and a couple of ‘clarets’, as Bordeaux wines are commonly named in Britain. There are also a few off-beat choices, such as Croatian Pinot Noir or Slovenian Pinot Gris. Only two wines from the house list are offered by the carafe or glass. One of them is simply ‘Ć’ which was obviously a spelling mistake. It put a smile on our faces, especially because friendly and the charming staff – the veritable flagship of this restaurant – managed to explain it nicely. By the way, the list is full of spelling mistakes, which does not influence your choice, but rather gives the wrong impression. It would be more appreciated if the wines were hand-written on a blackboard, some-thing that is perfectly acceptable for a bistro. However, according to Serbian legislation, no flexibility is allowed; you need to have a printed menu at each table. The ‘Ć’ wine was actually ‘Mali podrum Radovanović’ by the way.Mark-ups are standard and the glassware is typical for a bistro. ‘Jelena Anžujska’ is not a place for wine lovers who are looking for ‘serious’ French bottles, nor a place for students to pop up for a quick cocktail or two. Never-theless, this bistro has a lot of potential to become a wine corner. The French list, no matter how short, coupled with a few cleverly selected Serbian wines, would be a perfect match for this hospitable place. It is a place to feel at home where, as the chef put it, ‘the customer is always king’.

Price range: 850-1,500 dinars

French bistro Jelena Anžujska

Win

e c

orn

er

duda & vlada

In the knowledge that Belgrade is measured by one’s ability to tell locations relative to old kafanas, downtown alleys and small streets with odd names; at least in the cir-

cles that dub themselves “old Belgraders”, the location is never simply described in the form of a street name plus a number – no, that would be far too obvious and easy, as well as being the tell-tale sign of a newcomer. Instead, one should describe a location through a semi-understand-able stream of directions that use an old kafana as a starting point and throw in a dubious alley or two – and there you have the typical old fashioned, time con-suming yet charming method of native Belgraders. If you wish to participate in this little game with the natives, or hap-pen to be a native yourself (such as yours truly), here is a real treat: there is a new, tiny French bistro in town, well hidden in the densest area of Belgrade.

Do you know where Mišarska Street is? If you don’t, it’s about time you check it out on the map. It’s a small, hardly no-ticeable pedestrian street that looks more like a passageway - a perfect place to hide. Of course, a hidden place has to be ap-proached through a courtyard, and bistro Jelena Anžujska has a really pleasant one.

Apart from the unique location, there’s not much else to say about the space. Not only is it small, but is completely basic,

lacking anything other than tables and chairs and even lacking any idea of de-sign or comfort. But Jelena Anžujska is not just a restaurant and its atmosphere is not built on decorations. It’s all about the people, not about the space. The restau-rant is actually part of the international “Agape” programme established by the French Committee for Child Protection. It employs a chef-instructor and ten stu-dents selected from the Belgrade School of Tourism, Management and Hospital-ity. As part of this programme, students are given the opportunity to spend some time learning the secrets of French cui-sine and the French language in Bel-grade, before mastering their skills with work placements in Parisian restaurants.

Both the chef and his young appren-tices do their best to make you feel very welcome. The atmosphere is warm and casual, although the students’ approach is rather formal – these young men take their jobs seriously and one cannot blame them for doing so.

The menu is relatively brief and also seasonal. We caught the last glimpse of the spring menu, which is to be succeed-ed by the early-summer version, which in turn gives way to the mid-summer menu, then the autumn selection and so on. As the chef explained, succinctly but precisely, “We do not have a deep freezer”.

As one would expect, every dish on the menu is authentically French – from

typical Beef Bourguignon and stuffed squid Provence-style, to lemon meringue tart and pear flambé.

If it is your first time here, try the Foie gras – a homemade goose liver pate. A far cry from the haute cuisine version, the one served at “Jelena Anžujska” has a wild domestic flavour, is not perfectly smooth and has a strong bite of French liquor - great stuff.

We tried another “compulsory” start-er in the form of French onion soup. Served with slices of baked bread covered in cheese, this soup was a bit pale in co-lour and a bit too gentle in taste, but it did give us the unmistakable warm and replenishing feeling so typical of French onion soup; thumbs up.

The main courses that followed were nice and tasty, but more than the start-ers (or the desserts that followed), they clearly displayed the form and taste of domestic cuisine. The good old home cooking style is generally expected and welcome in a bistro, yet they have maybe – just maybe – taken it too literally here.

In any case, the traditional Beef Bour-guignon was a hearty single-pot dish with potatoes, shalots, bacon cubes and tenderly cooked beef, just as you would get it if your grandmother was Burgundi-an: a dish with a strong taste of red wine. Another main course, Beef steak with winter garnish and cheese sauce, had the distinction of boasting blue cheese in the sauce that is potent, tasty and overall

much better than the mediocre Belgrade standard. In France it may be usual, but for us it was a real treat.

We went with the standard dessert options of Crème brûlée and Floating Islands. The Floating Islands were very good, with an authentic homemade taste dominated by egg yolk. The same could be said of the Crème brûlée, only the “crème” title didn’t stand as it was far too watery. And since the crust of burnt sugar cannot be properly broken with a spoon on top of liquid, the French would not be proud of this one.

Being the only real French bistro in Belgrade, as well as a school and restau-rant in one, Jelena Anžujska definitely gives its guests a unique experience. The food isn’t perfect but, knowing the story behind it, some mistakes are tolerable and expected, even charming in a way. However, the prices are not so charming. They are at the same level as you would find in many rock solid, well-known Bel-grade restaurants, despite the fact that with its ambiance, food and service this tiny bistro cannot (and should not have to) compete at that level. The whole ex-perience is well worth a visit, but with the current prices we surely will not become regulars.

Jelena AnžujskaMišarska 7, tel: 011 3234776

Price guide: 1,300-2,200 dinars per person for three courses without wine

Jelena Anžujska: unique eateryThis original French restuarant is far from be-ing just another fancy place to dine in the city.

It always begins with a simple question: ‘Can you bring me the wine list’? Everything else that follows is a complex matter and cannot be measured only by how much is left in the bottle after dinner.

Basic info Rating

Overall Average

Wine selection Average

Wine service Good

Wine pricing Average

Wine and food pairing Average

Student photo exhibition at Dom Kulture Studentski grad

On Tuesday June 5th Dom kulture Studentski grad will show an exhi-

bition of student Visual Art, Photography and Digital Presentation.

The exhibition opens at 6pm.

Boris Bogdanović ceramics at ULUPUDS

The Association of Applied Arts Artists and Designers of Serbia (ULUPUDS)

presents an exhibition of ceramics by artist Bogdan Bogdanović from June 5th

to 15th at the ULUPUDS Small Gallery.

World premiere of short musical piece in Belgrade

The RTS Symphonic Orchestra will perform the world premiere of “Eight

Songs” by Ivan Jevtić, based on the verses of Momčilo Nastasijević.

The Kolarac premiere will take place on Wednesday June 7th at 8pm.

Belgrade Philharmonic at the Kolarac

The Belgrade Philharmonic will per-form at Kolarac on June 8th as part

of “Walking on a String”. The perfor-mance includes the Dances of Galanta by Kodaly, the Concerto for Viola and Orchestra by Bartok and Schumann’s Symphony No 4.

The concert starts at 8pm.

Harvard Choir in Belgrade

The Harvard University Choir will perform at Kolarac on Sunday June

10th from 8pm. Choir members will be joined on stage by Belgrade’s Collegium Musicum choir.

Entrance is free.

This spring’s batch of big films is set to bust box office records with ‘The Avengers’ as a contender for best-grossing film of all time. But this is just a fraction of the heavy ammunition that Hollywood is preparing to unveil.

Top class food with a few charming mistakes and overly high prices.


live music

FRIDAY JUNE 1Zaz , Nouvelle Vague, Belgrade Arena, Bule-

var Arsenija Čarnojevića 58, 9pmVra čar Rocks: Kristali, Virvel, Wooden Am-

bulance, Božidarac, Radoslava Grujića 3, 9pm

SATURDAY JUNE 2Dis -Patch 3/3: Bitipatibi, Chad Valley, High

Places…Mostarska Street Courtyard, 9pmLou d, Consecration, BIGZ, Bulevar Vojvode

Mišića 17, 10pm

SUNDAY JUNE 3Han g, Tea Break, SUS, Psychosonic Boris,

Fest, Gradski Park 1, Zemun, 4pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9Mar ilyn Manson, Laibach, Mizar, Block

Out, Belgrade Arena, Bulevar Arsenija Čarnojevića 58, 9pm

Dje čaci, Dom Omladine, Makedonska 22, 9pm

Gor an Bare and Majke, Dom Omladine, Dečanska 22, 9pm

MONDAY JUNE 11St range Brew, Sinobusi, Studentski Grad

Cultural Centre, Bulevar Zorana Đinđića 177, 9pm

WEDNESDAY JUNE 13Svi Na Pod, Studentski Grad Cultural Cen-

tre, Bulevar Zorana Đinđića 177, 9pm

THURSDAY JUNE 14Smo fte Haye, Elias and The Animal Orches-

tra, 6Kornbrot, GRAD Cultural Centre, Braće Krsmanović 4, 9pm

opera, Ballet,

classical

SATURDAY JUNE 2Ope ra: La Traviata, The National Theatre,

Francuska 1, 7pm

SUNDAY JUNE 3Duo Maska, Ilija M. Kolarac Endowment,

Studentski Trg 5, 11am

TUESDAY JUNE 5Bal let: Who’s That Singing Over There? The

National Theatre, Francuska 1, 7.30pm

THURSDAY JUNE 7RTS Symphonic Orchestra

with Bojan Suđić- con-ductor and Nataša Trivić- soloist, Ilija M. Kolarac Endowment, Studentski Trg 5, 8pm

FRIDAY JUNE 8Bel grade Philharmonic

with Vladimir Kulenović- conductor and Milan Milisavljević- viola, Ilija M. Kolarac Endowment, Studentski Trg 5, 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9Duš ica Blaženović- violin,

Guarnerius, Džordža

Vašingtona 12, 8pm

SUNDAY JUNE 10

Vasilisa Obradović- piano, Guarnerius, Džordža Vašingtona 12, 8pm

TUESDAY JUNE 12H2 Saxophone Quartet, Guarnerius,

Džordža Vašingtona 12, 8pm

Theatre

FRIDAY JUNE 1The Misanthrope (Moliere), The National

Theatre, Francuska 1, 7.30pm

SUNDAY JUNE 3Chi cago (Fosse, Ebb, Kander), Terazije

Theatre, Terazije 29, 8pm

MONDAY JUNE 4Dea th Is Not a Bike (Srbljanović), Yugoslav

Drama Theatre, Kralja Milana 50, 8pm

WEDNESDAY JUNE 6Me tamorphoses (Ovid), Yugoslav Drama

Theatre, Kralja Milana 50, 8pm

TUESDAY JUNE 7Har old and Maude (Higgins), Belgrade

Drama Theatre, Mileševska 64, 8pm

FRIDAY JUNE 8Zor an Đinđić (Frljić), Atelje 212, Svetogor-

ska 21, 8pm

SATURDAY JUNE 9Zor ba The Greek (Kazantzakis), Terazije

Theatre, Terazije 29, 8pm

SUNDAY JUNE 10Pla y It Again Sam (Allen), Belgrade Drama

Theatre, Mileševska 64, 8pm

TUESDAY JUNE 12Som e Like It Hot (Stone,

Merrill, Styne), Ter-azije Theatre, Terazije 29, 8pm

WEDNESDAY JUNE 13Dea th and The Dervish

(Selimović), Belgrade Drama Theatre, Mileševska 64, 8pm

THURSDAY JUNE 14Cab aret (Ebb, Kander,

Masteroff), Terazije Theatre, Terazije 29, 8pm

exhibitionsand events

FRIDAY JUNE 1Gon gbi painting of China, Belgrade City

Library, Knez Mihajlova 56, 6pm

SATURDAY JUNE 2Kva drat Film School student films, Stu-

dentski Grad Cultural Centre, Bulevar Zorana Đinđića 177, 6pm

SUNDAY JUNE 3Exh ibition: Miroslav Babić, Gallery of the

Academy of Fine Arts, Knez Mihajlova 53, 7pm

TUESDAY JUNE 5Exh ibition: Boris Bogdanović – Inner State,

ULUPUDS Gallery, Uzum Mirkova 12, 7pm

Exh ibition: Everything But The Kitchen Sink, international group exhibition, Dom Omladine, Makedonska 22, 7pm

Exh ibition: Mark Brusse – collages, Haos Gallery, Dositejeva 3, 8pm

WEDNESDAY JUNE 6Exh ibition: Serbian film producer Đoka

Bogdanović, Kinoteka, Kosovska 11, 12am

THURSDAY JUNE 7Exh ibition: Belgrade Illustrated Press – cov-

ers, The museum of Applied Arts, Vuka Karadžića 18, 7pm

FRIDAY JUNE 8 Pho to fair and exhibition (Belgrade Raw),

Rex, Jevrejska 16, 7pm

SUNDAY JUNE 10Exh ibition: Božica Rađenović, Gallery of the

Academy of Fine Arts, Knez Mihajlova 53, 7pm

TUESDAY JUNE 12Las er Summit – book promotion, GRAD

Cultural Centre, Brace Krsmanović 4, 7pm

Exh ibition: Nada Serafimović, Singidunum Gallery, Knez Mihajlova 40, 7pm

THURSDAY JUNE 14Doc umentary Film: Biba Struja, Studentski

Grad Cultural Centre, Bulevar Zorana Đinđića 177, 9pm

_________________________RODA CINEPLEX /Požeška 83A, tel: + 381 11 2545260 Požeška 83A, tel. 011 2545260 The Dictator – 3.10pm, 6.45pm,

8.30pm, 10.15pm The Avengers (3D) – 3pm Dark Shadows – 10.30pm Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (3D) –

4.15pm Men in Black 3 (3D) – 5.45pm,

8pm, 10.20pm Snow White and the Huntsman –

6pm, 8.20pm The Intouchables – 10pm

__________________________DOM SINDIKATA Trg Nikole Pašića 5, tel: + 381 11 3234849 The Avengers (3D) – 4pm, 6pm The Dictator – 7pm, 8.30pm,

10pm Men in Black 3 (3D) – 8pm, 10pm The Intouchables – 8.15pm,

10.15pm Snow White and the Huntsman –

3.30pm, 5.45pm, 8pm, 10.15pm

__________________________CINEPLEXX / Delta City, Jurija Gagarina 16, tel: + 381 11 2203400 American Reunion – 4.50pm Iron Sky – 3pm Snow White and the Hunts-

man – 3.10pm, 5.40pm, 8.10pm, 10.40pm

Dark Shadows – 6pm, 8.20pm, 10.30pm

The Avengers (3D) – 7.20pm The Intouchables – 8.50pm Men in Black 3 – 10pm Sea Level – 3.40pm Men in Black 3 (3D) – 4.20pm,

6.30pm, 8.40pm, 10.50pm Legend of a Rabbit (3D) –

5.30pm

__________________________TUCKWOOD CINEPLEX / Kneza Miloša 7, tel: + 381 11 3236517 The Intouchables – 3.15pm,

5.30pm, 7.45pm Men in Black 3 – 3.30pm,

5.45pm, 8pm, 10.10pm American Reunion – 4.20pm,

6.30pm Men in Black 3 (3D) – 6.40pm,

8.45pm Dark Shadows – 4pm, 6.10pm,

8.20pm, 10.30pm Snow White and the Huntsman –

4.15pm, 10.50pm Project X – 10pm Clip – 8.40pm, 10.40pm

__________________________KOLOSEJ CINEMA / Usce Shopping Centre, Bulevar Mihaila Pupina 4, tel: + 381 11 2854495 Clip – 10.45pm Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-

Wrecked – 2.15pm Safe – 9.50pm The Avengers – 2pm, 4.45pm,

7.30pm, 10.15pm The Dictator – 3.15pm, 5.20pm,

7.10pm, 9pm, 10.50pm The Dictator (VIP Hall) – 3.15pm,

5.20pm, 7.10pm, 9pm, 10.50pm Men in Black 3 – 3.25pm, 5.40pm,

7.50pm, 10pm Snow White and the Huntsman –

3.30pm, 6pm, 8.30pm, 11pm Mirror Mirror –3.50pm Dark Shadows – 3.35pm, 5.50pm,

8.20pm, 10.40pm The Woman in Black – 6pm, 8.50pm The Avengers (3D) – 5.30pm,

8.15pm, 11pm The Intouchables – 5.45pm,

20.10pm, 10.30pm The Hunger Games – 6.05pm Project X – 2pm, 6.10pm, 8pm Men in Black 3 (3D) – 2.10pm,

4.20pm, 6.30pm, 8.40pm, 10.50pm Iron Sky – 3.40pm

CinemasBelgrade’s cinemas only publish their schedules one week in advance. Listings for future weeks are available from the cinemas. All provide information in English.

FRIDAy JUN 1 Clubbing:

Mash Up or Shut UP – Me – High – Low, Povetarac, Brodarska bb, 11pm

Commercial Cutz DJ Ike & DJ Prema, Feestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

House Night at Informbiro, Studentski trg 11, 10pm

Just Friday – Freestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Belgrade Disco Mafia, Sound, Brodar-ska bb, 12am

Opening Night, Plastic Light, Brodar-ska bb, 11pm

Live music: Ana Štajdohar + Bend + Ognjen

Krstić, Brankow Bar, Crnogorska 10, 10pm

Neša Bend 100%, Hua Hua, Ada Ciganlija bb, 10pm

Balkan Express, Reka restoran, Kej oslobođenja 73bb

Tamburaši, Kod Bake, Sinđelićeva 31, 9pm

Marko Žujović, Akapulko splav, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 10pm

Blah Blah Bend, Cantina De Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 10pm

Vesko Vučković, Sindikat, Brodarska bb, 11pm

SATURDAy JUN 2 Clubbing:

Feel the rhythm, Kontra Bar, Strahinjića Bana 59, 9pm

Dancing Party, Povetarac, Brodarska bb, 11pm

Club House DJ Mirko & DJ Meex, Freestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Soundilicious, Sound, Brodarska bb, 12am

House Night, Informbiro, Studentski trg 11, 10pm

Dj Dulex, BlowUp bar, Bulevar Des-pota Stefana 36 a, 10pm

Live Music: Sloba Bajić i Hua Hua bend, Hua Hua,

Ada Ciganlija bb, 10pm El Jazzyra + DJ Peđa, Brankow Bar,

Crnogorska 10, 10.30pm Bojan Jevtić & Silver Bend, Akapulko

splav, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 11pm Live Jazz, Iguana, Karađorđeva 2-4,

10pm Vesko Vučković Bend, Cantina De

Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 10pm Tamburaši, Kod Bake Kafana,

Sinđelićeva 31, 10pm Perpetuum Mobile, Bitef Art Café,

Skver Mire Traiković 1, 10pm Salsa Y Punto, Café Buena Vista, Tur-

genjeva 5, 11pm

SUNDAy JUN 3 Clubbing:

Suprise Party DJ Mirko & DJ Meex, Freestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Funk’d, Disco Bar Mladost, Karađorđeva 44, 10pm

Live music:

Nada Pavlović, Brankow Bar, Crnogor-ska 10, 10.30pm

Live Jazz, Iguana, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm

Live Serbian Folk, Acapulco, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 11pm

Mia Borisavljević i Davor Jovanović, Time Out Club, Ada Ciganlija bb, 11pm

Marina Visković, Akapulko, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 11pm

Libra Band, Reka, Kej Oslobođenja 73b, 10pm

MONDAy JUN 4 Clubbing:

Sweet and Rough, BlowUp Barka, Savski Kej, BB, 9pm

Live Music:

Die Beste, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm

Karaoke, Danguba, Ćirila I Metodija 2, 10pm

Željko Šašić, Serbian Folk, Acapulco, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 11pm

That’s it band, Principal, Usce bb, 9pm Serbian Folk, Oppening Night, River,

Brodarska bb, 12am

TUESDAy JUN 5 Clubbing:

90’s Night DJ Playa, Freestyler, Brodar-ska bb, 12am

Retro resident Dj’s, Republika Bar, Pariska 1a, 10pm

Live music:


Denis & Obule, pop rock, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm

Salsa Night, Abra café, Resavska 76, 9pm

WEDNESDAy JUN 6 Clubbing:

I love R&B, Freestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Zwein Wednesday, Disco Bar Mladost, Karađorđeva 44, 11pm

Live Music:


Libertango Band, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm

Magic Beans, Villa Maska, Rankeova 7, 9pm

ThURSDAy JUN 7 Clubbing:

1-1 Party DJ Yabba & DJ Nikola, Free-styler, Brodarska BB, 12am

80’s night, Sound, Brodarska bb, 11.30pm

ReMake, resident Dj’s, Republika Bar, Pariska 1a, 10pm

Club Night, Informbiro, Studentski trg 11, 10pm

Live Music:

Serbian Folk, Blaywatch, Brodarska bb, 12am

Gitarsi, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm




Just Friday, Feestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Disco party, Sound, Brodarska bb Club-House, Plastic Light, Brodarska

bb, 12am ReMotion, Republika, Pariska 1a,

10pm House Night, Informbiro, Studentski

trg 11, 10pmLive music:

Ana Štajdohar + Bend + Ognjen Krstić, Brankow Bar, Crnogorska 10, 10pm







SATURDAy JUN 9 Clubbing:

Igranka, Povetarac, Brodarska bb, 11pm

Club House DJ Mirko & DJ Meex, Freestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

What’s that Sound, Sound, Brodarska bb, 11.30pm

House Night, Informbiro, Studentski trg 11, 10pm

Disco House, Plastic Light, Brodarska bb, 12am

Live Music: Sloba Bajić i Hua Hua bend, Hua Hua,

Ada Ciganlija bb, 10pm Serbian Folk, River, Brodarska BB,

12am El Jazzyra + DJ Peđa, Brankow Bar,

Crnogorska 10, 10.30pm Bojan Jevtić & Silver Bend, Akapulko

splav, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 11pm Live Jazz, Iguana, Karađorđeva 2-4,

10pm Vesko Vučković Bend, Cantina De

Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 10pm Tamburaši, Kod Bake Kafana,

Sinđelićeva 31, 10pm Salsa Y Punto, Café Buena Vista, Tur-

genjeva 5, 11pm

SUNDAy JUN 10 Clubbing:

Suprise Party DJ Mirko & DJ Meex, Freestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Funk’d, Disco Bar Mladost, Karađorđeva 44, 10pm

Live music:

Extra Orchestra, Mr Stefan Braun, Nemanjina

Nada Pavlović, Brankow Bar, Crnogor-ska 10, 10.30pm


Live Serbian Folk, Acapulco, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 11pm

MONDAy JUN 11 Clubbing:

Sweet and Rough, BlowUp Barka, Savski Kej, BB, 9pm

Club House, Plastic Light, Brodarska bb, 11pm

Clubbing and Live music sections powered by Hot-Spot.rs

Info & free booking+381 (0)64 0133300

what’s onwhat’s on

______________________________Publisher: BIRN d.o.o.

Gospodar Jevremova 47, 11 000 Belgrade

Phone/Fax: +381 11 334 62 09Editor in Chief: Gordana Igrić

BIRN editorial team: Ana Petruševa, Marcus Tanner, Gordana

Andrić, Mark Pullen

[email protected] & Marketing: Marija Petrović

Phone: +381 11 6 5555 [email protected]

Subscription & Distribution: Ivan Lakatoš

[email protected]: POLITIKA štamparija d.o.o.ISSN 1820-8339 = Belgrade Insight

COBISS.SR-ID: 149132556Circulation: 4,000

Subscribe to Belgrade Insight today and guarantee your personal copy, delivered directly to you.

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Live Music:

Die Beste, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm

Karaoke, Danguba, Ćirila i Metodija 2, 10pm

Željko Šašić, Serbian Folk, Acapulco, Kej Oslobođenja bb, 11pm

That’s it band, Principal, Usce bb, 9pm Serbian Folk, Opening Night, River,

Brodarska bb, 12am

TUESDAy JUN 12 Clubbing:

Foam party, Plastic Light, Brodarska bb, 12am

90’s Night DJ Playa, Freestyler, Brodar-ska bb, 12am

Live music:


Denis & Obule, pop rock, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm

Salsa Night, Abra café, Resavska 76, 9pm

WEDNESDAy JUN 13 Clubbing:

Buzzin’ R’n’B & Hip-Hop DJ Ike & DJ Prema, Freestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Zwein Wednesday, Disco Bar Mladost, Karađorđeva 44, 11pm

Live Music:


Libertango Band, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm

Magic Beans, Villa Maska, Rankeova 7, 9pm

ThURSDAy JUN 14 Clubbing:

1-1 Party DJ Yabba & DJ Nikola, Free-styler, Brodarska BB, 12am

80’s night, Sound, Brodarska bb, 11.30pm

ReMake, resident Dj’s, Republika Bar, Pariska 1a, 10pm

Club Night, Informbiro, Studentski trg 11, 10pm

Live Music:

Serbian Folk, Blaywatch, Brodarska bb, 12am

Gitarsi, Cantina de Frida, Karađorđeva 2-4, 9pm




Just Friday, Feestyler, Brodarska bb, 12am

Disco party, Sound, Brodarska bb Club-House, Plastic Light, Brodarska

bb, 12am ReMotion, Republika, Pariska 1a,

10pm House Night, Informbiro, Studentski

trg 11, 10pm

Live music: Ana Štajdohar + Bend + Ognjen

Krstić, Brankow Bar, Crnogorska 10, 10pm







Programmes may be subject to change. Please check online for more information

at http://www.hot-spot.rs/

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Welcome to Event club!

All events in Serbia are now available on www.eventclub.rs.

Event categories include culture, sport, music, business,

performance, fashion, festivals and so on.

Our website is available in Serbian and English and

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Serbia’s World Cup tennis team won the title in Dues-seldorf on May 26th after reaching an insurmount-able 2-0 lead against the

Czech Republic in the final.Similar to the Davis Cup final two

years ago, the decisive point for Serbia

was won by Viktor Troicki when he defeated Radek Štěpánek 2:6, 6:4, 6:3.

Serbia initially took the lead through Janko Tipsarević, who won a tight duel against Tomáš Berdych 7-5, 7-6.

This is Serbia’s second World Cup title, following their triumph in 2009.

Troicki demonstrated in Dues-seldorf that he is slowly returning to form, winning four consecutive singles matches, however, Tipsarević showed even better form in also win-ning all his matches.

Troicki started poorly against Štěpánek and despite breaking his opponent in the first set, lost three of his own service games to gift the Czech a convincing 6-2 set victory.

Troicki, however, soon played bet-ter after drastically improving his first serve percentage from 40% in the first set. The decisive break in the set was made early, though there were opportunities later in the set for Štěpánek to break back.

Troicki saved three consecutive break points in the eighth game and then missed two break chances of his own in the ninth. The follow-ing game saw Štěpánek again miss a chance to draw level.

The decisive moment came in the third set, when Troicki won his rival’s service game before a second break ended the match, which was fol-lowed by a massive on-court celebra-tion to the patriotic anthem “March on the Drina.”

sportgoing out

Dawn of a festive summer david GAlić

Long known as a defining characteristic of summers in Belgrade, the presti-gious Belef festival is fo-cusing this year on unity

and community by becoming an umbrella festival composed of several festivals.

Belef already kicked off on May 25th, but it won’t end anytime soon. The festival promises a remarkable 83 days of cultural activities, lasting until August 15th. Belef will have 14 festi-vals within the festival itself, with over 300 artists participating.

Belef tries to offer the best and latest in music, performing arts and visual arts to everyone spending the sum-mer in the capital. Already considered the soul of the Belgrade summer ex-perience, the decision to turn it into an all-encompassing umbrella festi-val further solidifies the importance of this festival to Belgrade’s cultural identity.

The Belef experience will give visitors a peek into all of the best festivals that are held in Belgrade throughout the year and show them what they might have missed over the year by skipping these great cul-tural events.

Examining the entire repertoire is a daunting task, but among many other things, Belgrade’s dwellers and visitors will be able to experience cutting edge musical acts through the already inde-pendently important RingRing and Resonate festivals, laugh with more than 20 stand-up comedians from the region and the UK, and enjoy the famed Macedonian Basker Fest, which includes international street theatre and the many acrobats, ma-gicians, jugglers, clowns, mimes and puppeteers who will perform.

Along with the two popular music festivals, Belef organisers have an-nounced that another major concert

will be held at Kalemegdan Fortress, though the performers are still being kept secret.

Impressively, Belef ’s 2012 pro-gramme will include over 30 musical performances and concerts, close to ten various art exhibitions, three full film festivals, educational seminars, literary festivals, poetry readings, stage performances, theatre produc-tions, dance recitals and just about any other type of cultural event imaginable. Belef will even include events related to the UEFA Euro 2012 football tournament, which be-gins on June 8th and will last for the duration of the month.

Best of all, most of the events will occur outdoors under the day and night skies of the city, which adds to its appeal as an enjoyable way to spend the summer.

So if you are strapped for cash and trapped in the city for the duration of the summer, there is no need to fret. Belef will provide you with entertain-ment until at least mid-August, and like every year, all the events will be free of charge. For more details on events, concerts, exhibitions and per-formances you might want to check the festival’s official website http://www.belef.org/ for the latest news and announcements.

Kolaković names squad for Japan

World Cup belongs to Serbia

Serbia national team coach Igor Kolaković picked his squad to travel to Japan for the upcoming Olympic qual-ification tournament, which

will be held in Tokyo from June 1st to 10th and will see the winning team and the top Asian team will qualify for the London Games.

Kolaković said that his players must not burden themselves with the ‘favou-rites’ tag they earned after winning this year’s European championships.

“We are number one in Europe, but we know how we earned that title. We dare not think we’re favourites, despite having the highest world rank-ing among the competing teams,” said Kolaković.

“We are not starting from the prem-ise that we are favourites, but rather that we are a team that wants to get to the Olympic Games. This is the great-est possible motivation for us.”

In addition to Japan and Serbia, the Olympic qualifiers in Tokyo will include Australia, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, China, Iran and South Korea.

“It is well known how tough we had to play against Japan and Iran and we will have to play our best against the other teams. It will be tough. Ahead of us are seven games in ten days and we need to play really well to win this tournament,” said Kolaković.

Serbia’s top volleyball players play their first game today (Friday June 1st) against Japan at noon CET, followed by games against South Korea, China, Aus-tralia, Puerto Rico, Iran and Venezuela.

Exit beefs up electronic music programme

With this year’s Exit rapidly approaching, organisers continue to announce new performers. Most recently they added a whole slew of DJs to the lineup, among them DJ Skream & Sgt Pokes, Sub Focus DJ Set & ID and MistaJam. The festival’s cutting-edge electronic music stage ‘Happynovisad’ has confirmed, among others, Jimmy Edgar.

Independent comic strip festival expands locations

The Novo Doba (New Era) independent comic strip festival is scheduled to take place in both Belgrade and Pančevo from June 5th to 10th. Exhibitions, screenings, workshops and concerts will take place at a variety of locations, including the Rex Cultural centre, Inex Film and the Gallery of Contemporary Art in Pančevo.

Famed BBC DJ to visit Belgrade again

One of BBC Radio’s top DJs, Gilles Peterson, will visit Belgrade for the tenth time on June 22nd to spin music in the outdoor garden venue of the Sava Centre. Peterson is known as one of the most relevant authorities on all kinds of dance music and also runs his own record label as well as performing live and hosting his own radio programme.

Local bands given spot at Belgrade Calling

After three days of major foreign bands in Ušće Park, the Belgrade Calling festival will have a fourth day featuring Serbian bands. The final day, scheduled for June 30th, will be free for those who bought a ticket for at least one day of the festival. This final day will also be used to stage the finals of the Jelen Top 10 competition.

Rainy weather sends Zaz show to arena

French singer Zaz, who is very popular in Serbia for some inexplicable reason, held her recent Belgrade concert at the Belgrade Arena instead of the initially scheduled Kalemegdan Fortress. The concert was moved to avoid the unseasonably inclement weather in the Serbian capital.

Serbia draws Croatia in Olympic handball group

Serbia will play in group B at the London Olympics, alongside Spain, Hungary, Croatia, Denmark and South Korea.

Handball is growing in popularity in Serbia, with the national team re-turning to the Olympics after a gap of almost a decade – the country’s men’s handball team last participated at the Sydney Olympics in 2000, coming fourth after losing the bronze medal game.

Serbia took silver at the European

Championships on home soil in Janu-ary this year, marking the team’s best result at a European Championships since 1998, when they came fifth in Italy.

Serbia’s team has failed to make an impact at the sport’s world champion-ships since 2001, when the team won bronze in France.

This will be the first Olympics for most of the team, but coach Vese-lin Vuković won gold as a player for Yugoslavia at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Belgrade’s summer festival promises to fill the warmer months with almost three months of continuous cultural and entertainment events featuring more than 300 artists.

The men’s Handball draw for the Olympic tournament has pitted Serbia against neighbouring Croatia, which recently beat Serbia in the final of the European Championships.

VOLLEYBALL

tennIS

Belef will have 14 festivals within the festival itself, with over 300 artists participating.

All information available over the telephone on (011) 3332851

or vial email at [email protected]

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Belgrade fashion designers store with unique clothes,

shoes & accessories

Palmotićeva 23tel: +381 11 3236429tel: +381 64 6123455www.slic.rs

GO-GO DaNCERS & BELLY DaNCERS every day eXcept sunday

Zmaj Jovina 4tel: +381 600 [email protected]/lotosclub

coco Chocolate, coffee

and jazz bar

Rajićeva 14,+381 60 6860614www.coco.rs

facebook.com/cocochocolatebar

eXclusive real estate company

Zadarska 10tel: 011/244 21 42

063/140 4000

[email protected]

COCkTaILS, ORIGINaL ITaLIaN ESpRESSO,

rothschild Wines…

Strahinjića Bana 20tel: +381 62 [email protected]/pages/Belgrade/Bar-Bar/374151585446

professional massage, body detoxification and oxygen therapy

Skadarska9, tel: +381 11 3246 105

+381 11 3340 458 +381 65 66 55 654

pure identity spa studio

Skeyndor and Ericson Laboratoire cosmetics treatments

Cara urosa 6tel: +381 11 2632836Mob: +381 63 1641903www.pureidentity.rs

Belgrade Insight Issue No 116

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Transcript of Belgrade Insight Issue No 116